A few weeks ago, I was in Portland.
It was – as it does 9 months of the year – raining, so having had dinner, I decided to go back to my hotel room and see what American television had to offer me.
I find American television fascinating because there seems to be only 2 states it operates in: awesome and horrific.
For every Damages or Silicon Valley … there’s 10,000 Gracepoint’s – the terrible remake of the UK’s Broadchurch.
Of course, there are occasions when they do a great remake – House Of Cards for example – but they are much better when they just create their own stuff. Or should I say, when HBO creates their own stuff.
Anyway, I was flicking through the 8 million channels when I came across PBS … the Public Broadcast Channel.
I have always loved PBS, their podcasts are legendary, but I’ve never really had a chance to watch their television show.
So I started watching and it was a show about American baby-boomers.
All the people they interviewed had impacted or changed culture in different ways.
Actors … astronauts … designers … it was a real hotchpotch of ‘talenty’, but what was great about the show was that the people weren’t talking about their achievements, but just the issues that either influenced them or shaped them.
From racial and gender prejudice to war, parents and stubborn teachers.
So if you have 10 minutes, check out some of the stories [you can do it here] and you will be reminded how the little decisions we make, often are the ones that can affect our lives in the biggest of ways.